The Healthline Editorial Team

Tracy Stickler — Editor-in-Chief

As editor-in-chief
at Healthline, Tracy Stickler oversees the editorial strategy and execution of
all content on Healthline.com. She has nearly a decade’s worth of experience in
online editorial strategy, user engagement, and online consumer research with a
specific focus on health and lifestyle content.

Prior to
joining Healthline, Tracy served as a content producer for the BBC Gardening
website, where she was responsible for the editorial strategy and day-to-day
management of the site. Tracy holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the
University of Wisconsin-Madison, a post-graduate degree in botanical horticulture
(Kew Diploma) from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in London, as well as a master’s
degree in ethnobotany from the University of Kent, Canterbury in the United Kingdom.

Rachael Maier —
Managing Editor

Rachael Maier joined
Healthline in May of 2010. She managed GE’s web portal, HealthAhead and helped
curate Healthline’s Reference Library and condition-specific topic centers
before signing on as the site’s managing editor in 2012.

Previously, Rachael was an assistant
publicist at HarperOne, where she worked on book campaigns for Sidney Poitier and
Mariel Hemingway, among others. In her early days, she founded and
self-published a magazine called Pleach.

Rachael graduated with
honors from Ithaca College where she earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology
and minored in writing and art. A wide range of passions has led her to forays
into farming, homelessness advocacy, aromatherapy, acting, art instruction, and
winemaking.

She photographs and blogs
about everyday life, edits friends’ manuscripts, experiments with gluten-free
recipes, and freelance writes in her free time. Her favorite mode of
transportation is her own two feet.

Robert Hanson — Senior Editor, Content Marketing

Robert joined the editorial team at Healthline in April of 2012 and manages custom content initiatives
as well as general content across Healthline.com. Prior to joining Healthline,
Robert held several editorial and marketing positions at Yahoo! where he
developed consumer-focused content for a number of Yahoo! properties, including
Autos, Real Estate, Travel, and Tech as well as the Yahoo! homepage. Robert got
his start as a writer and editor working in the music industry with Avid
Technology and Penton Media.

Robert is a graduate of
UC Santa Barbara and has received awards from both the California
Intercollegiate Press Association and Yahoo! in recognition of his writing and
editing skills.

Isabel Spahn — Copy Editor

Isabel worked as a medical editor for seven years in Philadelphia at the National Board of Medical Examiners before moving to Sausalito two years ago. Since moving, she’s worked as a freelance medical editor and at Pearson Education as a digital editor. As a digital editor, she developed and edited curriculum for an all-digital, tablet-based app.

Isabel graduated magna cum laude from Towson University and has tried to travel as much as possible since graduating. Her travels have taken her to Sweden, Czech Republic, Indonesia, Costa Rica, and Spain. She also enjoys live music, hiking, camping, and cooking. She loves exploring all that the West Coast has to offer.

Heather Kathryn
Ross — Editor, News

Heather joined Healthline in
May 2012 as an assistant editor. She joined Healthline’s inaugural news team in
January 2013 and now manages the bicoastal news team covering healthcare
policy, health technologies, and the latest medical research.

Heather graduated with highest honors in
2010 from UC Berkeley with a degree in American studies. Her self-directed
degree program focused on American literary history and popular culture and
U.S. media depictions of minority groups.

Heather has written and edited for numerous
publications and websites, including VIA Magazine, the New Internationalist,
the Berkeley Political Review, Diablo Magazine, and T: The New York Times Style
Magazine.

A jewelry maker,
photographer, and ardent traveler, Heather can usually be found out and about
with her camera or biking through San Francisco looking for a scoop.

Cameron Scott —
Writer, News

Cameron
Scott is a Healthline news staff reporter. Prior to joining Healthline in 2014,
Cameron wrote about robotic prosthetics and stem cell research for a tech blog
and about the environment for SFGate.com. Cameron has also had work published
in SF Weekly, Mother Jones, and California Lawyer.

Before
landing in journalism, Cameron earned a doctorate in comparative literature
from Cornell University (cold) and a master’s degree in creative writing from
the University of Texas (hot).

In the perfectly
mild climes of the Bay Area, Cameron enjoys hiking, running, biking, and
swimming in fresh water. He has recently discovered that he can put most of these
together and call it a triathlon. At rest, Cameron enjoys reading, writing
creatively, and the company of well-behaved children and poorly behaved
canines.

David Mills — Associate Editor, News

David has eagerly arrived at Healthline.com after a career that has followed the technological advances in the communications business. He began his career in the late 1970s on newspapers, just a few years after the Washington Post’s reporting on the Watergate scandal. For the first few years, David and his fellow journalists actually worked on electric typewriters. Fortunately, computers were introduced, making writing, reporting and editing significantly easier.

After 16 years in the newspaper business, David jumped into the burgeoning business of television news. He worked for 17 years as a writer and producer at KPIX, the CBS affiliate in San Francisco.

As TV news faded, David made the leap to the Internet, joining the staff at patch.com in October 2010 as an associate regional editor.

He worked there until the January 2014 company-wide layoffs. He found work back in newspapers for the next year until he happily landed again on the Internet with healthline.com.

David lives in Walnut Creek with his wife of 38 years. They have two grown daughters and three grandchildren.

David likes to read, go to movies and hike. He ran track in high school and college, but his knees told him last summer it was time to give up that activity and start hiking instead.

Aaron Moncivaiz — Editor, Clinical Content

Aaron became a
member of the Healthline editorial team in July 2013. Since joining Healthline,
he has worked on editing and updating Healthline.com content, contributed news
and health articles, edited the Healthline.com homepage, and assisted in
production. Currently, Aaron manages the clinical content calendar, planning
assignments and working with contributing writers.

Previous to
Healthline, Aaron was an assignment editor in television news in Seattle and
the Bay Area. He also reviewed performing arts and wrote on current events for
local culture blogs, and even worked as a publicist for a heavy metal/free jazz
band.

Away from work,
he writes, reads, runs and bikes through the city, and disappears for long
periods of time in bookshops and record stores.

Kareem Yasin —
Assistant Editor, Lifestyle Content

Prior to joining
Healthline in 2013, Kareem Yasin worked in the editorial and social media
departments of Afar and Via, two travel magazines based in the San Francisco
Bay Area. In 2010, he was a staff writer on renewable and nuclear energy for
Middle East Economic Survey, based in his hometown of Nicosia, Cyprus.

Kareem has a bachelor’s degree in international
relations and a master’s degree in media studies from Stanford University.
During his studies, he interned as a reporter at Cyprus Mail and Palo Alto
Weekly, and co-authored a paper on the Cyprus peace process for the Hoover
Digest, an academic journal.

Elsbeth Riley — Editor, Email Marketing

Elsbeth joined Healthline in April 2014 as the editorial production
assistant, and is now an assistant editor.

Elsbeth is a Bay Area native and graduated with honors from the
University of California, Santa Cruz with a degree in literature and
education. Prior to Healthline, she
worked on an in-class learning tablet application at Pearson Education.

While obtaining her undergraduate degree, Elsbeth wrote as a reporter
for City on a Hill Press,
interned in the international publishing department at National Geographic in
Washington, and spent a semester at the University of Glasgow writing music
reviews for the Glasgow University Guardian.

An athlete all her life, Elsbeth enjoys every outdoor activity. She has
backpacked the John Muir Trail, kayaked off the shores of Maui, and hiked in
the Scottish Highlands. In her free time she loves to run, do yoga, and rock
climb. And of course, a good book (or the e-book version) can always be found
in her backpack.

Casey Hollis —
Assistant Editor, Content Maintenance

Casey Hollis is an assistant editor responsible for assessing, updating, and enhancing all content on Healthline.com.

Casey comes to
Healthline from Pearson Education, where she worked as an associate digital
editor for a kindergarten and first grade math curriculum. Her past experiences
include internships at Avalon Travel Publishing, McSweeney’s, and the Bay Area
News Group.

Casey holds
degrees in literature and history from King's College in London, England, and
the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. In her free time, she likes
hiking in the East Bay hills with her dog, Jet.

Adam Wenger — Lead Writer, Content Marketing

Adam writes and produces new and innovative pieces of content for Healthline.com, manages some of the site's social channels, and helps develop content marketing products. Prior to joining Healthline, Adam worked as a social media manager at KGO Radio, an award-winning Bay Area news station. He has interviewed celebrities, run with the bulls, written for the only English newspaper in Florence, Italy, and penned a novel.

When Adam isn’t working, he likes to watch hockey, remind people he’s Canadian, and play tennis. He graduated magna cum laude from UC Santa Barbara, and challenges anyone to a game of Mario Kart.

Mary Baucom — Editorial Assistant, Content Marketing

Mary joined Healthline in September 2014 as the editorial assistant for content marketing. She’s primarily responsible for researching and developing custom content proposals, working with freelancers, and editing new content.

Prior to Healthline, Mary attended the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and earned her masters degree in magazine journalism. Her reporting focused on health and nutrition within the Chicago area. In 2013, she graduated from St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York with honors degrees in English Literature and Government.

An avid traveler, Mary has visited more than 20 countries. She lived in Japan for three years and studied in Denmark and Ireland as part of her undergraduate studies. In her free time, she enjoys exploring the Bay Area and trying new recipes in her kitchen.

Amy Tenderich — Editorial Director, Diabetes & Patient Advocacy

Amy
is the founder and editor-in-chief of DiabetesMine, a leading online information
destination for people with diabetes and one of the top health blogs around the
country and the world. DiabetesMine became a part of Healthline in mid-January
2015.

Amy is a journalist, blogger, and patient advocate
who started DiabetesMine after she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2003. The
site has won numerous awards and was recently named the number one diabetes influencer
by ShareCare.com and the American Diabetes Association.

Amy has made it her
personal mission to spur innovation in diabetes care that actually originates
with patients. She penned an open letter to Steve Jobs in 2007 that went viral,
developing into an international crowdsourcing competition called the
DiabetesMine Design Challenge — underwritten by the California HealthCare
Foundation, and supported by IDEO, a leading design firm with close ties to
Stanford University. The competition culminated in the DiabetesMine
Innovation Summit event, which she now hosts each fall at Stanford.

Amy is also
an author and well-known
public speaker at national diabetes, healthcare, and health technology events. She is
a periodic guest lecturer at Stanford University on health design topics.

She lives on the fringes
of San Francisco with her husband, three daughters, and a calico cat.

Mike Hoskins — Associate Editor, DiabetesMine

Joining
Healthline in January 2015, Mike has more than a dozen years of experience in newspapering
and online journalism, as well as patient advocacy. After graduating from
Oakland University with a journalism and political science degree, he's worked
at newspapers in Michigan and Indiana — Spinal Column Newsweekly, Oakland
Lakefront magazine, Detroit Free Press, the Daily Journal, and Indiana
Lawyer/IBJ Media.

Most recently, Mike has been running daily
editorial operations at DiabetesMine, combining his passions for journalism and patient advocacy
given his own type 1 diabetes diagnosis at age five.

When he's not writing or working, you
may find Mike digging into his family genealogy or history in general, finding
adventures with his black lab Riley, or exploring the array of microbreweries
and coffee houses around Michigan and Indiana.

Justin Beaver — Production Manager

Justin joined Healthline in January of 2013 and manages the production team. Using Healthline's content management system, Justin maintains standards and a workflow with production assistants to publish information in various formats. Additionally, he provides direction for creative and interactive content, along with custom development projects.

Justin has a background in graphic design, document management, and photography. Prior to those endeavors, he graduated from Virginia Commonweath University with a BFA in Communication Arts & Design.

In his spare time, Justin likes being outdoors biking, hiking, and appreciating the creative aspects of the Bay Area.

Emily Gadd — Editorial
Production Assistant

Emily joined the team in June of 2014 as
an editorial intern, and is now a production assistant. She earned her
bachelor’s degree in print and online journalism from San Francisco State
University.

Emma Venturini — Production Assistant

Emma joined Healthline as a production assistant in August 2014. She publishes editorial content and manages production needs of the site using our CMS.

Before joining Healthline, Emma worked at Doctor’s Internet, a website design and marketing company for health professionals. Originally from New York, she graduated from Ithaca College with an honors degree in art history and writing. She is an avid tennis player, professional pizza maker, and prolific reader.

Tracy Rosecrans — Vice President, Marketing

Tracy Rosecrans joined Healthline as SEO & Social Media Manager in 2011. Prior to working at Healthline, Tracy served as principal at SF Web Consulting, where she helped a diverse clientele define and achieve their online marketing goals. While there, she consulted for large corporations such as CBS and New Resource Bank as well as surgeons, attorneys, wineries, small businesses, and non-profits.

Tracy graduated with honors from University of California San Diego with a BA in Economics and a minor in Psychology. Immediately following college, she joined the US Peace Corps and served as a Microenterprise Development Volunteer in Costa Rica. On the side, she enjoys traveling, biking, practicing her Spanish, exploring San Francisco, and indulging in exceptional eats.

Nelson Hernandez — Interactive Designer

Nelson is a graphic designer with more than 10 years experience and a strong curriculum that demonstrates conceptual problem solving in advertising. He is in charge of evolving the visual design and usability of Healthline.com, conceptualizing and designing editorial packages, and streamlining Healthline.com's clinical applications into a coherent and cohesive user experience.

Before joining Healthline, Nelson was the art director and lead-designer at MyPoints.com where he oversaw the creative resources, design aesthetic, and content objectives for all projects related to MyPoints.

Nelson also served as the principal for 3.6.75 Design, where he helped a diverse clientele to connect with their audience by creating exceptional online campaigns that viewers could relate to. His diversity, as well as his passion for arts and technology, has allowed him to work for and consult with clients such as The DVD Group at Universal Studios, Wells Fargo, Cisco, and AMD, among others.

Nelson holds two degrees in Digital Media and Film Production from Full Sail University in Orlando, FL., and a specialized degree in Audio Recording Engineering from El Taller de Arte Sonoro in Venezuela. He has also taken graphic design courses under the MFA Program of the Academy of Arts University in San Francisco.

Michael Patton, RN — Director, Clinical Knowledge Representation

As Director of Clinical Knowledge Representation, Michael Patton oversees the work of four clinical terminologists. Patton graduated from University of San Francisco (USF) in 1999 with a Baccalaureate in Nursing. Shortly after passing the California Board of Registered Nursing exam he enrolled in the Masters of Nursing program at USF. Upon graduation with a Masters in Organizational Management and Informatics, he embarked on a medical and surgical nursing career. In 2005, Patton accepted a position within the Informatics Department at Healthline Networks. After two years of building the core taxonomy, Patton was recruited to build out the Clinical Quality Assurance Department where he assembled an international team of experts that provides daily clinical oversight. Currently his team is part of the search R&D team, providing developers with algorithm rules, monitoring recall and precision and making taxonomy refinement.

Pragnesh Hariawala, MD, MBA — Senior Manager, Medical Informatics

Pragnesh Hariawala, MD; MBA heads a team of doctors in US and India, and is responsible for the accuracy and completeness of Healthline Networks medical taxonomy, which includes translation of medical concepts into consumer friendly names. He comes to us from the windy city (Chicago) where he worked for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois for nine years in the Health-care Management and Subscriber Services divisions.

As a Medical Informatics Specialist lead at Healthline Networks he is constantly involved in finding ways to incorporate disease prevention aspects into a patient's health care plan. The core work involves organizing medical subjects and assigning appropriate concepts from medical terminologies.

Pragnesh obtained his medical degree (MD) from University of Mumbai, India. Thereafter, he practiced as a family practitioner for two years and worked as a medical officer in a multispecialty hospital for four years. Pragnesh earned his MBA in Healthcare Administration from Loyola University, Chicago.

Bijal Shah, MD, MPH, CPC — Clinical Informatics Specialist

Dr. Bijal Shah is a Clinical Informatics Specialist at Healthline Networks. She has a number of years of experience in the healthcare industry and has been working in the healthcare sector for over a decade.

After having practiced and worked in India as a clinician in a private hospital, she moved to California. Bijal worked at University of Southern California (USC); University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and University of California San Francisco (UCSF) in various capacities ranging from Clinical Research to Clinical Revenue Cycle.

At Healthline Networks, she works in the Informatics team that works on organizing medical subjects and assigning appropriate concepts from medical terminologies; developing graphical representations of medical concept relationships; managing and transforming medical terminology.

She obtained her medical degree from Bombay (Mumbai) University, India and Master's degree in Public Health (MPH) from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Dr. Kenneth R. Hirsch, M.D.

Ken earned his M.D. from Washington University in St. Louis,
MO and did his postgraduate training in both Internal Medicine and Hepatology
at UCSF. He did additional postgraduate
training at the NIH in Allergy & Immunology. Subsequently, Ken worked as the Chief of
Hepatology at the Washington DC VAMC and served on the faculties of the medical
schools at both Georgetown and George Washington Universities.

He also has years of experience in pharmaceutical research
in industry as well as serving on advisory boards for both national medical
societies and regulatory bodies.

In addition to his medical pursuits, Ken has a longstanding
interest in bioinformatics, applications of internet technologies for
education, gourmet cooking, and organic farming.

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